Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is the director of communications for the Legatum institute and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. Her new ebook No God Zone is now available on Kindle.

This is not on a par with the Islamic State’s persecution of Christians in northern Iraq. But the West should stop pretending outrage at the bigots it has spawned. With stealthy determination its governments have demoted religious freedom from a crucial right to a secondary consideration.

Sexual preference and gender equality are taken seriously: laws and a host of employment regulations protect these rights with a convert’s fervour. A schoolboy who calls another one “gay” as a term of abuse faces arrest; a woman can sue the pants off her boss if she can prove his sexual discrimination.

But people’s beliefs are of no account. The conscientious objector who cannot marry a gay couple because to do so would run counter to her religious beliefs will lose her job; the pharmacist who won’t sell the morning-after pill because he thinks abortion is a sin will lose his.

The liberal secular establishment rubs its hands in satisfaction: yes, this is enlightened governance. No room for antiquated prejudice in their brave new world.

They seem genuinely unaware of the impact of their actions. In erasing God from public life they have laid the ground for ignorance and bigotry of another kind. They are flourishing – in every anti-Semitic attack and Islamophobic troll that has surfaced. When religion, all religion, is seen as something sinister and anachronistic, its followers become easy scapegoats. No one knows any longer what faith is, or what distinguishes and unites the main Abrahamic religions; myths and counter-myths abound. A Jew – as Stephen Pollard wrote in the Telegraph – is an Israeli; an imam is an Isis apologist; a Christian is a creationist. The suspicion with which even the powers that be view the God-botherers gives the green light to those looking for an outlet for their resentment. It creates a domino effect: an event in Gaza sets off repercussions in Golders Green.

Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Christian bile are related. Our attitude to religious freedom – sneering and cavalier – has created this dangerous trinity.